726

submitted 10 months ago by ReadyUser31@lemmy.world to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world

55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Was slightly mindblown whenl discovered this.

The two parts to the word "helicopter" are not "helil" and "copter", but "helico" meaning spiral, and "pter" meaning one with wings, like pterodactyl.

1044 AM-5Mar 2018 21,200 Retweets 67,241 Lkes

wait WHAT

Aderinthemadscientist: Wait, so... does -copter come "from" helicopter?

108echoes: Yep! This is called rebracketing. Another famous example would be"-burger": the original food item is named after the German city, (Hamburgl+(er], but semantically reinterpreted as (ham]+[burger].

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] IntergalacticZombie@feddit.uk 10 points 10 months ago

Does that mean the 'P' was supposed to be silent? You don't say puh-terodactyl without getting laughed at in school... Um, probably!! So, is it a actually called a helicoter?

[-] weirdwallace75@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

So, is it a actually called a helicoter?

No. Language isn't always logical, and that's one way in which it isn't.

load more comments (5 replies)

this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023

726 points (98.7% liked)

Microblog Memes

5135 readers

1545 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
Be nice.
No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.

Related communities:

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

ReadyUser31@lemmy.world